German government in turmoil over disastrous military leak
The German government has spent the last 24 hours scrambling after a leaked video call between German military personnel revealed British operations in Ukraine and exposed various Ukrainian military targets in Russia and occupied Crimea.
The call between Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz and senior Luftwaffe officers took place on standard unencrypted software that was tapped by Russian hackers.
In the call, the Bundeswehr officers confirmed the presence of British troops on the ground in Ukraine, discussed certain military targets that Ukraine might hit and the potential deployment of German Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
On Sunday, German chancellor Olaf Scholz said the leak was “a very serious matter”. “That is why this is now being clarified very carefully, very intensively and very quickly.” The German ambassador to Russia was swiftly summoned to the Kremlin to explain why German military personnel were discussing Ukrainian military targets in Russia.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “The recording itself suggests that the Bundeswehr is discussing substantively and specifically plans to strike Russian territory.” He added: “[It] once again highlight[s] the direct involvement of the collective West in the conflict in Ukraine.”
Gerhartz told the other officers that he was unsure why Germany hadn’t sent missiles to Ukraine given that the UK and France had and that UK troops were in Ukraine training soldiers how to use them. Gerhartz said: “They [the UK] have a few people on the ground; [but] they, the French, don’t do that.”
“So, [the UK] QC [quality control] the Ukrainians while they’re loading the Scalp [French-made missiles], because Storm Shadow and Scalp are in a purely technical sense quite similar.”
Ironically, an officer thought to be Brigadier General Frank Graefe, said the military “must be very careful from the beginning to avoid any wording that would implicate us in the conflict”.
Back on the missiles, Gerhartz said that in order not to “change the course of the hostilities”, Germany must send the Taurus missiles in batches.
“That’s why we don’t want to send all of them. And not all of them in one batch. We may first send 50 missiles, and then give them another 50. This is absolutely clear, but this is big politics.”
This blunder proves what Russia has long known: that the West is embedded in and aiding the Ukrainian forces. What’s more, this breach comes at a time when the rest of Europe and the US are losing trust in Germany given its seriously depleted military.
At the end of the Cold War Germany had an army of half a million troops. By 2019, that had fallen by 60 per cent. The German army has 183,000 active servicemen and women and 20,000 leave or retire every year. That makes the government’s policy to increase the amount of troops to over 200,000 by 2031 extremely unlikely. Since the end of the Cold War, it is estimated that the German military has been underfunded relative to Nato allies by almost €400bn.
The war in Ukraine has shocked Germany into action but some argue it may be too late. Olaf Scholz (who the UK’s former defence secretary Ben Wallace called “the wrong man, in the wrong job at the wrong time”) referred to the Ukraine war as a “Zeitenwende” – a watershed moment. He has since pledged more funding for the military.
Germany has committed to spending two per cent of its GDP on defence, finally adhering to Nato rules. This year it will spend €72bn but experts say an additional €25bn-€30bn will be needed to get up to two per cent. Ulrike Franke, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said: “[Defence minister] Boris Pistorius asked for €10bn extra for the 2024 defence budget and got €1.7bn. The reality does not match the rhetoric.”
Adding to Germany’s woes is a stuttering economy that slipped into recession last year marred by nationwide strikes and farmer protests. The ruling coalition is quickly losing popularity. All of this makes proper defence spending far more difficult.
The still-popular Pistorius has defiantly stated that his country must be “kriegstüchtig” – ready and capable of waging war. Today, foreign minister Annalena Baerbock hit out at Scholz’s refusal to send missiles to Ukraine urging her government to “intensively consider” doing so. Pistorius says he is trying to “shake the Germans awake”. This leak and its potentially disastrous consequences might do just that.
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